starsinursa:

destiel-is-cockles-fault:

I need jack to ask more about cas (to dean preferably). And I want him or Sam to tell dean how jack considers him his father, how he chose him.

I want to hear dean talking about cas. About how dorky or clueless or self-less and badass he was. About how many times he saved their asses, how cas saved him from perdition, how cas cared so much about jack to the point of risking his life.

Please, give me this!!!

When Jack goes to Sam and asks him, “Will you tell me about
Castiel?”, Sam gives him an unreadable look and only says: “I think you
should ask Dean.”

So Jack does, although he doesn’t understand why.

He finds Dean in the garage. The loud, black vehicle is turned on,
and he can feel the vibrations shaking deep in his chest before he even gets close.
The door on the driver’s side is open. Jack can see Dean in the vehicle, sitting with his head back against the
seat. He has one leg inside the car, the other leg stretched
out. His knee is faintly bouncing. Beneath the noise of the
engine, he can hear the sound of music playing from the radio.

Dean’s eyes are closed, and he doesn’t notice Jack standing in front of the open door.

“Will you tell me about Castiel?” he asks, for the second
time that day.

Dean opens one green eye and stares at him. Jack looks back, because he has learned the importance of eye contact if he wants to show that something is important to him.

Finally, Dean straightens up and jerks a thumb to the
passenger seat. “Get in.”

Jack rounds the car, opening the passenger door and
sliding into the bench seat. He shuts the door and waits, straight-backed,
hands on his knees, while Dean turns down the radio.

“What d’you wanna know?” Dean asks gruffly.

“Everything. Anything,” Jack says sincerely. “I don’t remember everything about my mother clearly, but I remember that sometimes she felt very alone, or felt very afraid. They were very strong feelings, strong enough that I could feel them too. But those feelings lessened, when Castiel was around.”

Dean makes a sound – a strange, choked kind of laughter –
but he leans back against the seat again. He’s quiet
for a few moments, and then he starts to talk.

And he talks, and he talks. And Jack listens.

___

Dean tells Jack about Sam dying, and making a deal with a demon to save him. Jack is surprised, and thinks that he doesn’t know very much about these two men after all, these men who brought him to their home and speak of Castiel with such affection and wistfulness in their voices.

Dean tells Jack about the forty years he spent in Hell, and it’s painful to listen to. Jack doesn’t particularly like hearing about this part, but he listens because he wants to hear about Castiel saving Dean from Hell and using Jimmy Novak as a vessel and helping stop the apocalypse.

Deans tells him about Castiel fighting a war in Heaven, and working with Crowley. Dean tells him about Castiel walking into the lake, and
returning as Emmanuel. Dean tells him about Castiel being tricked by Metatron, and the
angels falling from Heaven. Dean tells him about Castiel being possessed by
Lucifer, and meeting God and His sister.

Dean tells him about all of these things – an overview of Castiel’s history with the brothers, the good and the bad. The obvious cornerstones and momentous events of Castiel’s life. 

But these are the things that everyone would know about Castiel, and Jack is more interested in the other things that Dean tells him – the small things, the tiny details filling in the cracks like
grains of sand. These are the words that Jack soaks up, leaning slightly
towards Dean to catch every word, hands gripping his knees a little tighter.

About how Castiel learned to doubt and ask questions. About the shadows of Castiel’s wings. About the ugly trenchcoat and backwards tie that Castiel would never give up, because they had been part of Jimmy’s sacrifice. About how Castiel loved PB&J, at least for a while.
About the haunted look in Castiel’s eyes whenever he talked about Heaven. About the exasperated tone Castiel would
use when Dean or Sam would do something particularly stupid. About the subtle smile that would grow at the corners of Castiel’s mouth sometimes, when he was amused but pretending not to be, hidden unless you knew where to look.

Dean barely glances at Jack as he talks. Instead, he stares out the windshield with distant eyes, as if seeing something other than the garage of the Bunker. He gestures as he talks, lively hand movements to accentuate points in his stories. It’s the most that Dean has ever talked to Jack, and the longest he has ever gone without casting one of those secret, guarded looks in Jack’s direction, as if waiting for the moment that Jack will attack them – looks that Jack knows he isn’t supposed to see. But now, it’s as if Dean has almost forgotten he’s there, and is simply talking to himself. He hardly looks at Jack at all.

Once, while describing the process of teaching Castiel something called ‘knock knock jokes’, Dean even smiles – nothing more than a quick flash of teeth under faraway eyes. It’s not even aimed in Jack’s direction, but it startles him, because it’s the first time he’s ever seen Dean smile, and it looks so out of place that it almost seems wrong. Sam smiles, sometimes. But Dean doesn’t smile, at least not around him.

But Jack listens, and as he listens, he thinks he understands. 

When Jack thinks about his mother, there is an painful feeling, an empty, aching sensation – almost like being hungry, except the
feeling is in his chest, not his stomach. He might not have met her, but he had known her, and her absence is like he was born with a piece of himself already missing. He does not entirely feel whole. This is the same feeling he can see reflected in Dean’s eyes now, and it’s almost startling to realize that he is not alone in this.

Jack and Dean are not so different, he realzes, despite what Dean might think. Jack and Dean share something, and it’s called ‘loss’.

Dean has finally stopped talking, words sinking one by one under the rumble of the Impala until they stop coming at all. 

“You miss him,” Jack says, when it’s obvious that Dean isn’t going to say anymore. It’s not a question.

The answer is not immediate. It comes quietly, hushed, like footsteps in the dark.

“…yes.”

“You loved him,” Jack says.

“Yes,” Dean whispers.

With a slow movement, Jack reaches out and teaches Dean on
the shoulder, brief and light. A small connection, an acknowledgment.

“I am sorry,” Jack whispers, “for your loss.”

Dean nods. And then he lowers his head,
puts one hand over his eyes, and does something else that Jack never knew Dean could do: he cries.